Prafulla Kumar Mohanty
These days one regularly hears
one word: Conspiracy. Mob lynching, they say is the conspiracy of one community
to kill members of another. Conspiracy, they cry hoarse, when cows are smuggled
out and sold in another country for rich tables. What was it, when Duryodhana’s
soldiers and advisors attempted to steal the cows from Virat’s kingdom in
the absence of the king and his army in
the Mahabharata, if not a conspiracy to smoke out the Pandavas from their
period of incognito exile? The Jatugriha; the invitation of the Pandavas for a
dice game by Dhritarastra: the claim to the Ayodhya throne by Bharat’s mother
for her son on the day of Ram’s coronation; Sita’s abduction by Ravana (yes a
vengeful conspiracy);Krishna’s plot to take away the armour from Karna- you
name it! The list is endless. Political conspiracy apart the god- myths are
full of conspiracies to defame, demean and dethrone rivals in anger or
jealousy. Corporate conspiracy is a modern day scourge on our systems of
capitalistic economy. Communal conspiracy, caste-creed conspiracy and the
laughably intriguing small time conspiracies which we watch everyday on the
Tele serials to defame a close family member are our daily bread, however stale
or bitter: But conspiracy has its wide network as the second nature of human
civilization.
What is conspiracy? Why does
man conspire to bring the fall of another human specimen? Conspiracy is like a
guerrilla attack on a known and powerful person or group when he/ it is least
prepared or even aware of it. Who conspires? One who is weak and jealous; one
who cannot take his target head on; one who feels small because of his/her own
shortcomings. A strong man, a man of honour and valour never conspires: for he
is confident of himself. He may not be flawless but he never stoops to conquer.
At times ideological misconceptions too lead to conspiracy. The murder of
Mahatma Gandhi, John.F.Kennedy, even Indira and Rajiv Gandhi’s murders have
been plotted by groups whose ideologies are shy of confronting the heroes of
nations. Such heroes at times fall victims to conspiracy of the mean and weak
people. The conspirator is a coward. But often we see men of great honour too
conspire in the name of some skewed logic of morality. Brutus kills Caesar in the
Capitol in a stance of conspiratorial heroism. After the death of Achelles, in
Homer’s great epic poem Iliad,
Ulysses says: with the death of Achelles gone is Greek courage; but not Greek
cunning- and the result in the Trojan Horse, a fatal gift which destroyed the
towers of Troy. Greek cunning proves to be anti-heroic thievery slurring their
victory to posterity.
The murder of Abhimanyu is a
hateful illustration of conspiracy. Seven chariot warriors of the Kuru army,
each one wearing a laurel crown of military glory conspired to kill Arjuna’s boy,
Abhimanyu whose display of warfare shamed them to guileful meanness. This
illustrates the shady machinations of tinsel heroes and brings self – condemnation forever. Conspiracy always robs the world of its most priced virtues. This also
proves that a true genius is never accepted by the human beings. We see that in
our myths, stories, literature in general and in social life too. We justify
the early and untimely death of a great man, saying – whom God loves dies
young. If this be true even, God does not appreciate genius in man, his own
creature.
In the story (true) of Dharmapada
who laid the pot at the peak of the Konark temple, we notice the same
pettiness, jealousy and inhumanity in man. The twelve hundred artisans could
not place the Kalasa, could not complete the time bound work. The boy Dharmapada,
all of twelve years , son of the chief Architect Sibei Samantaray, who had gone
there in search of his father could do it with ease and perfection. These
artisans, including the architect, fearing decapitation at royal command,
almost compelled the boy to make a sacrifice of his life to save the so called
artisans and sculptors from ignominy. Genius is always sacrificed at the
altar of immoral, self-seeking cowards. Is this the price of genius: death by
deceit, conspiracy or meanness?
In the modern world in which the
Sapiens are more educated, trained and much better off than their early
centuries counterparts, conspiracies are technologically hatched for political
gains. After the Second World War the computer and the Internet have given
scope for cyber conspiracy. Pentagon can be hacked, the fighter planes cannot
take off, bombs may explode, data would be manipulated by remote control and
even wars can break out by spreading fake news.
The powerful conspire to retain
power; the poor and the jealous cowards conspire to destroy towers of
civilization: and the great intellectuals play safe by resorting to the conspiracy
of silence! Borrowing Huxley’s Brave New World, I may say, hurry! Let us
conspire against each other to bring mankind to God’s shame and regret for
having conspired to create man for his own sadistic entertainment.
